The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Having read the book of the same name by Douglas Adams, I was curious about the film of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. My flatmate has said that the film doesn't match up to the book at all and I would agree with this. My last post was about The Da Vinci Code and I talk about how difficult it is to adapt a book into a film that genuinely matches up. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is another example of this.

It’s definitely not a bad film though. The book is very funny and keeps you captivated page by page. I think the focus with the film was to produce a visualisation of everything for the audience. In this respect the film does very well. I particularly liked Alan Rickman as Marvin the depressed robot. Alan Rickman has a voice that particularly lends itself towards the slightly depressed character. His manner in playing the character is absolutely spectacular and is completely how I imagined the character when reading the book.

Also, for me, Martin Freeman is perfectly cast in the role of Arthur Dent. It might just have been the fact that I knew it was Freeman who plays Dent when reading the book, but I could imagine him being completely comfortable as Arthur. His unique manner of acting lends him very favourably to this character. Martin Freeman has a way of delivering comedic lines which many people find entertaining and it is displayed very clearly in this film.

The other cast is very good too. I enjoyed Zooey Deschanel as Trillian. It’s is quite hard to tell the difference between an actor’s unique manner and them playing the same character in a lot of films. I thought there was nothing about Zooey Deschanel’s character that marked the performance out from anything else she’s done. I did like Mos Def as Ford, and there was a brilliant eccentricity about him in this film that perfectly captured the essence of Ford. I’m not sure what I made of Sam Rockwell as Zaphod though. It might just be because he played the character differently to how I imagined him, but I wasn’t convinced. He managed the zany character very well, but there was nothing that screamed ‘President of the Galaxy’ to me.

For me, it is the small parts that very successful actors and actresses have in this film that marks out how successful the book was. With Bill Nighy, Warwick Davis, Helen Mirren, Stephen Fry and John Malkovich all playing a role in the film it was obviously a big enough project to attract the big names. However, it was lacking something for me. While graphics are impressive for 2005 I felt a bit disappointed that the film added an extra scene at the end which wasn’t included in the book. I never like it when a film does this because the intention of the film is to adapt the book and by adding an extra scene at the end interprets the book in a way that the author may not have intended. It can also completely change the impact of the film. It is a shame that The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy does this, but ultimately I can get over it.

It’s never easy to adapt a book into a film, and especially with a science-fiction book there will always be people who don’t like it for one reason or another. Personally, although there’s no real problems with the acting or anything like that, I just don’t like that an extra scene was added. It doesn’t live up to the book at all and so I would read the book before you think about seeing the film. In all honesty, having read the book, I would avoid the film.